Page 133 of Against the Clock

The Matthews brothers are watching me with both respect and surprise.

“Jacob, is your foot good enough to do it? You still fast enough?”

“Yeah, I can do it,” he says, and I believe him.

Maybe this is how Coach feels when I tell him I’m fine. He hears what he wants to hear.

“Don’t fucking lie to me,” I grit out. “If you’re not fast enough, if your ankle is still fucked, we’ll run it the other way. Ty can get the hand-off.”

Dale’s screaming something into my headset. I rip it off and throw it on the ground. The cameras all around must catch it, because the crowd goes insane.

“Time, time,” the coaches on the sidelines yell. The clock’s running down while we're in the huddle.

There’s never enough time when what you love is on the line.

“I can do it,” Jacob says, calm, steady.

I actually do believe him this time. I nod once.

“Break,” I shout, and my team forms up, taking on the slightly different positioning to run the trick play.

Dale’s screaming obscenities on the sideline, screaming the name of the play he wants us to run instead.

Fuck you, Dale.

I grin at the offensive coordinator as the center lines up to snap the ball, then return my focus to the game.

This is it. Now or never.

“Hike,” I shout, putting my whole heart in the word, because this might be the last time I say it.

Ty runs straight to the end zone, and the ball meets my hands. The defense is scrambling to cover Ty and I jerk my arm up. The guys gunning for me mostly back off, switching gears and running for the receivers.

Jacob brushes past me and I pass him the ball I never threw.

He leaps over the pile of bodies on the ground, and the last thing I see before I get hit is him diving into the end zone.

We fucking won.

It’s almost a good enough feeling to numb out the fresh hell of my shoulder.

I don’t get up. I stay down. I stay down, and I taste blood on my tongue. I know that feeling, I know it better than anything. It wakes me up at night.

My shoulder’s dislocated.

Again.

CHAPTER 53

KELSEY

I’m on autopilot, interviewing the players they’ll allow me to talk to after the game. I ask them questions without listening to a word they’re saying because I don’t care.

I don’t care.

I don’t care if the Hot Dams eviscerate me online, I don’t care if my boss never promotes me again. Right now, all I care about is going through the motions long enough to finish out this gig. I toss it back to the studio, and the recording light on the camera blinks off.

I have to find Daniel.

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